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Enlisting Support For Imperial War By Stephen Lendman 9-22-14

America hasn't known peace throughout its sordid history. It's lawless. It's blood-drenched. It's unique. It's been this way from inception. It glorifies war. It does so in the name of peace. It's part of the national culture. Obama is the latest in a long line of warrior presidents. He exceeds the worst of his predecessors. He gave rogue leadership new meaning. He usurped the right to wage war at his discretion. He's done so for over five and a half years lawlessly. Multiple direct and proxy wars rage. More are planned. Peace and stability are convenient illusions. So is obeying rule of law principles. Obama heads an administration Murder, Inc. agenda. He targets any nation, group or individual he chooses. Wars or targeted killings are one Executive Order Away. Or presidential diktat. Enemies are invented to pursue administration policy. ISIS/ISIL/the Islamic State (IS) is the latest example. In a September 4 London Times op-ed, Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron said: "We will not waver in our determination to confront the Islamic State." "If terrorists think we will weaken in the face of their threats they could not be more wrong." Fact check: IS is a US creation. Britain, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Pakistan and rogue NATO partners share responsibility. Turkey marches in lockstep with US imperial policy. Since Obama's  war on Syria began in March 2011, it recruited jihadist extremists for Washington. To wage war on Assad's government. To aid Obama's regime change plans. To do so lawlessly. To oust governance the vast majority of Syrians support. To eliminate an Israeli rival. To isolate Iran. To redraw the Middle East map. To give America unchallenged regional control. To steal its resources. To make serfs of its citizens. At the same time, risk embroiling the entire region in conflict. Perhaps all Eurasia. Official reports turn truth on its head. Big Lies substitute for explaining Washington's agenda. America, rogue NATO partners, Israel, Jordan, and complicit Gulf states support IS terrorists. They've done so throughout Obama's war on Syria. The killings of US journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff, as well UK citizen David Haines, are used to enlist public support for more war. "We continue to face a terrorist threat," said Obama. The only ones are those America invents. ISIS/ISIL/the Islamic State (IS) is "unique," Obama claims. "If left unchecked, these terrorists could pose a growing threat beyond (the) region, including to the United States." Obama's September 20 radio address featured one Big Lie after another. IS "pose(s) a threat to the people of Iraq, Syria, and the broader Middle East," he said. "(I)ts leaders have threatened America and our allies. (I)f left unchecked, they could pose a growing threat to" US interests and its homeland. "This isn't America vs. ISIL…It's the world vs. ISIL." "(W)e're leading the right way…(M)ore nations are joining our coalition. Over 40 countries have offered to help…" Which ones aren't clear. Or in what capacity. France and Australia alone committed war planes. They ruled out bombing Syria. Few nations, if any, intend attacking Syria. Obama plans doing so to help IS. Its forces are US proxies. They're recruited from dozens of countries. US special forces and CIA operatives train them at the Amman-based Arab/American Military Operations Command (MOC) center. Israel is very much involved. It supports IS and other extremist anti-Assad fighters. Former French foreign minister Roland Dumas said Britain planned covert action against Assad in 2009. "I was in England two years before the violence in Syria on other business," he said. "I met with top British officials…(They) confessed to me that they were preparing something in Syria." "This was in Britain not in America. Britain was preparing gunmen to invade Syria." Before conflict began, US and UK special forces trained Syrian opposition elements. They did so to oust Assad. To replace him with pro-Western stooge governance. In October 2012, The New York Times headlined "Rebel Arms Flow Is Said to Benefit Jihadists in Syria," saying: "Most of the arms shipped at the behest of Saudi Arabia and Qatar to supply Syrian rebel groups fighting the government of Bashar al-Assad are going to hard-line Islamic jihadists, and not the more secular opposition groups that the West wants to bolster, according to American officials and Middle Eastern diplomats." So-called "moderate" anti-Assad elements are more fiction than fact. IS and likeminded extremist groups comprise the bulk of Washington's anti-Assad shock troops. Washington uses IS and likeminded groups' civilian killings as just cause for war on Iraq and Syria. Waging it has nothing to do with humanitarian intervention, responsibility to protect, or spreading democratic values. These notions and similar ones are foreign to US interests. Iraq's oil is key. Other objectives include: destabilizing its puppet regime; balkanizing Iraq into the Kurdish north, Baghdad center, and Basra south; controlling it more effectively this way; ousting Assad; replacing him with convenient US-friendly stooge governance; eliminating a key Israeli rival; isolating Iran; and preparing to replace its independent government with one Washington controls. It's longstanding US policy. It's America's dark side writ large. The business of America is war. It's waging it for unchallenged global dominance. It's making the world safe for monied interests. It's plundering nations for profit. It's stealing their resources. It's disenfranchising populations. It exploiting them. It's turning workers into serfs. America's wars have nothing to do with external or internal threats. None exist. They're invented to advance Washington's imperium. To wage permanent war on humanity. To maintain homeland police state harshness. To eliminate nonbelievers. To destabilize world nations to control them. Obama calls it "American leadership." International law calls it naked aggression. It's based on Big Lies. No just cause exists. No existential or other threat against America. No legal authorization. Washington's UN envoy Samantha Power disgraces the office she holds. She fronts for power. She lied claiming America has a "legal basis" for bombing Syria. It has "universal support" to attack IS, she said. She turned truth on its head claiming: "The Iraqis have appealed to the international community to come to their defense not only in Iraq, but also to go after safe havens in foreign countries." "And what they mean of course is Syria. And they’re quite explicit about that." Fact: Washington pressures, bullies and threatens other countries to comply with its wishes. Fact: It makes offers they can't refuse. Fact: They dare not, or else. Fact: Noncooperative leaders are targeted for regime change. Fact: Washington uses coups, assassinations or wars. No legal basis to wage it exists. Expect none forthcoming. So-called anti-IS support is deceptive at best. It's fake at worst. IS is a valued US/Western/Israeli/Gulf States ally. It's America's  pretext to bomb Iraq and Syria. US strategy has nothing to do with degrading and destroying its effectiveness. Their governments are targeted. At issue is establishing unchallenged Eurasian control. It's doing it on route toward pursuing it globally. Permanent war is America's strategy of choice. War on humanity. Dirty war. Waging it without mercy. Lawlessly. Ruthlessly. LIkely ground war if bombing alone fails. Replicating past and ongoing quagmires. In early August, The Los Angeles Times headlined "Obama returns to the quagmire he exited in Iraq." On the one hand, he "closed the door on a dark decade of US war in Iraq. Now he has opened (it) again," said the Times. It's unclear what he plans next. Claiming no US ground troops involvement is false. Hundreds of US special forces were deployed. Perhaps brigades of combat troops will follow. Retired Army Lt. General David Barno called his strategy "a watershed event." There's no turning back, he said. "Now that we are using lethal force in Iraq, that's a huge bridge to cross, and it's very difficult to get back across once you are over it," he stressed. Some experts warn targeted strikes won't work. Defense expert Stephen Biddle said pinprick bombing has "zero meaningful chance" to succeed. Obama crossed the Rubicon. He's pressured to do more. "(M)ission creep and quagmire risk (are) very real," he said. He'll experience what others before him learned. Starting wars are easy. Ending them are tough. Every post-US-led war continues in one form or other. Afghanistan is America's longest war. Its most expensive. No end in sight looms. Obama initiated Iraq war III. Libya is a cauldron of out-of-control violence. No effective government exists. Washington's puppet regime has no power whatever. Militant groups maintain local and regional control. Central governance exists in name only. Obama's war on Syria continues. Expect proxy war to shift to direct US involvement. Expect Syrian forces to be bombed. Doing so supports America's IS ally. Syria already is ravaged. Around one-third of its population is internally or externally displaced. Tens of thousands died. Many more were injured. An entire country is being systematically destroyed. No end of conflict looms. Imperial lawlessness works this way. Regime change alone matters. Obama wants Assad ousted at all costs. He's going all-out to topple him. He's using IS and likeminded terrorist forces as shock troops. Bombing assures greater mass slaughter and destruction. Doing so adds another high crime to his rap sheet. A previous article called impeaching him a national imperative. He's a war criminal multiple times over. He's a world-class thug. He's guilty of high crimes against peace. He threatens humanity. He's heading America for global war. He exceeds the worst of his predecessors. James Madison called war the most dreaded enemy of liberty. It's the "nurse of executive aggrandizement," he said. "No nation (can) preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare." None can survive perpetual war. "In no part of the Constitution is more wisdom to be found, than in the clause which confides the question of war or peace to the legislature, and not to the executive department." Today, Security Council members alone can authorize war. Not presidents. Not prime ministers. Not Congress. Not parliaments. Not judges. Not anyone in America or elsewhere. Obama governs extrajudicially. Stopping him matters most. The late Chalmers Johnson called US policies "arrogant and misguided." They assure "catastrophes comparable to our disgrace and defeat in Vietnam," he said. All previous empires perished. America faces the same dynamic that doomed others. It's unwilling to change. It faces growing numbers of anti-imperial global forces. It's not a matter of if its demise awaits. It's when. It's how.  It's whether military dictatorship follows. Or its civilian equivalent. Or if humanity can survive its wars without end. Johnson transformed himself from cold warrior to activist US foreign policy critic. He believed tyranny and ruin awaits. He's badly missed when most needed. Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. His new book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III." http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com. Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network. It airs three times weekly: live on Sundays at 1PM Central time plus two prerecorded archived programs.

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